Tuesday, December 31, 2013

It will be
much easier to offend people in this post, but I think if you make it through
yesterday and today, then tomorrow everything will make sense.

Yesterday I
referred to one convention incident, and as I said, while the perpetrator did out
himself and apologize, many people felt it was inadequate and were upset not
just with him, but with others in the press for letting him off too easily, and
they made good points.

While I was
mulling over that, another random comment directed me to a different incident,
in this case with some complaints on the part of the perpetrator of backbiting
and people being two-faced. This reminded me of some other comments I had seen.
In the third case, some were complaining about one web site posting unfounded
allegations irresponsibly, and then others were complaining about that
attitude, which seemed soft on the harassers.

Those last
two paragraphs may be confusing, so I'll sum up. There is a total of three
incidents, involving three separate comic book creators, usually with multiple
victims, and unhappiness in all directions. None of the creators were people
that I had heard of before, but in all of the commentary people I like were
criticized for not being harsh enough.

(I'm
omitting names deliberately, because I think it would be a distraction, but it
may not be that hard to figure out.)

One of the
common refrains in a lot of the articles was "We all know there are a lot
of creeps in the industry." There are, but labeling them creeps means that
for someone who is friends with the creep, and has had good working
experiences, "creep" does not describe the person. They may go too
easy on a friend, because it's hard to accept someone we like and respect doing
that.

It may be
more helpful to think of the industry as full of people, but with a culture
that encourages some pretty creepy behavior, and with a population where the
majority benefits from that culture, so there is resistance to change.

It's not
that some people are not super-creepy; they are. It's not that people shouldn't
know better; they totally should. It is also remarkably easy to go along with
the norms without examining. I'm going to refer to a non-convention related
story.

There have
been several edits as new things happen, but the original post that I read
starts below the 12/23 edit. This was a frightening experience for the author,
and I don't blame her for that. I appreciate her compassion for the driver; she
is correct that they need better training and procedures in place. If nothing
else, the driver should have silenced the guy once they were both on the bus.

There is
also something that I notice with the harasser though, and this is not a
defense of him. He was offended too, for being perceived as dangerous. Race
appears to have been a factor. Now, responding to that by threatening language
is so stupid and wrong, and not having any empathy for the author, really,
everything that he did was wrong. I also notice that in what she quoted, he
threatened to slap her, but the other things he told her that she deserved, not
that he was going to do them.

It seems to
be an important part of rape culture that while there is a limited number of men
who will rape, there are a lot more who are okay with the mention of it, and
with all that is demeaning and dehumanizing. Maybe it is easier to feel like
they are still good people, because they aren't doing anything illegal.

There is a
whole spectrum of this behavior. Rape and physical violence is the extreme end,
and that does sometimes happen at comics conventions, but not nearly as much as
groping, which still happens less often than verbal harassment.

What I
wonder about with the guy at the bus stop is if that could have been turned
around. She was viewing him as a threat, which was reasonable. While the burden
of his bad behavior is totally upon him, ff she had said something that
acknowledged his humanity, but still turned him down, could that have been a
better experience? I don't know, but I'm going to link to one more thing:

The first
time I read the ten percent statistic, it was being used as an argument against
direction rape prevention at rapists, because a ten percent improvement isn't
very effective. I disagree. For the people affected by that ten percent, it's
really significant, yes, but also I think there is a bigger impact.

Let's say
you have some people who will assault and rape, no matter what you do, another
group who was never going to sexually assault anyone, and then the target
group, who views things differently after the campaign and does change
behavior. They don't become criminals, which is good, and means that some
people are not becoming crime victims who otherwise would have, which is also
good.

I suspect
there is also a difference in the group that would never commit the assault,
because maybe they are now less likely to think "She was asking for
it." That's a key part of the culture, and it matters, so reducing that
attitude matters.

And the
changes in that group make a difference for the ones who will not be educated.
Maybe some of them won't be moved by education, but would be moved by societal
pressure. Maybe some of them will have to retreat when there are no longer safe
places for them to demean and hurt.

I know, I
am going back and forth between things that are crimes and things that are
awful but legal, but there are correlations, and I think the correlations are
important. That's how we pick up on the trends and themes, and how we can
extrapolate to find solutions, which is where tomorrow will be going.

Monday, December 30, 2013

More often
than you would think, I find myself exhorting young girls not to lie to their
therapists and counselors. It's not because the deception keeps the
professional from having the knowledge to help them, because frankly hearing
their experiences has not really bolstered confidence in available mental
health services.

It was more
a realization that they were already too disconnected from hiding too much.
Every lie they told reinforced that what they really thought and felt and
wanted didn't matter. It didn't mean they should tell everyone everything, but
it was important not to lie. So refusing to discuss something was fine, and I
may have at times encouraged telling the professionals that they were doing
lousy jobs and that the things they were suggesting were stupid, but that
whatever they said needed to be true.

Honesty has
been a recurring theme this year, often by its absence. The lack of honesty has
been an issue in politics, and comics, and every social issue, because refusing
to look at things with a clear eye is often what allows the perpetuation of the
issues, so honesty is an important thing that we do for society, but I am also
recognizing it more as an important thing that we do for ourselves.

This
probably sounds like I am beating around the bush. That is partially true. I am
nervous about doing a bad job with my overarching theme for the week, but also,
making these connections is important. Looking at the big picture, it makes
total sense that we need to be true to ourselves. There are countless examples
of how lies erode and corrode, so it makes sense for me to apply that where
we're going now, and this week is going to basically be about sexual harassment
in comic culture. Some of my examples will go beyond that, but my solution is
going to be centered around conventions and events. And I am nervous because
there will be many opportunities for people to take offense, and if they must
they must, but I want to at least write clearly enough that nothing is
misinterpreted.

One of the incidents
that has led to this series of posts is written up pretty well here:

There is
quite a bit more to the story, because the harasser has come forward, and
apologized. There were some deficiencies in the apology, and apparently some
patterns, and that probably goes more with tomorrow's post, but one thing that
really had me thinking was this:

"We
get the hell out of there. I vent to my husband. We drive to my friend’s house
and I vent to her and her partner. That evening, I distract myself with comfort
food, wine and an engaging movie, and hope that I’ve gotten past it, but six
hours after the panel has ended, I’m sobbing on the couch, feeling helpless and
self-loathing.

I hate
myself for acting like everything was fine, for not standing up for myself, for
letting him disrespect me in front of all those people. Thirteen hours later,
it’s the middle of the night and I’ve woken up in a rage. I’m not over it. In
fact, I can’t think about anything except how victimized I feel. How there’s
nothing I can do about it now."

That hit
home. I know from my own experiences that when I have let others disrespect me,
it haunts me, and when I have stood up for myself, I have felt proud. Sometimes
there was really no difference in how the people were treating me, only in my
reaction. What I have decided years later was that when I played it off or
ignored it, I was essentially giving these people permission to abuse me, and
so I believed what they said, and internalized it.

I was not
thinking, oh, it's okay for them to do this, but at times we are taught that
words don't mean anything, or that people respect you more if they can't get a
rise out of you, and various other things that sound good but don't take the
psychological cost into account. If you are female, you are taught over and
over again to be nice and not make a fuss.

There are a
lot of things that I am willing to suck up without complaining. I can work long
hours in uncomfortable conditions, and I can clean up disgusting messes for
loved ones, and I can let someone be very annoying if they need a listener and
I accept a role in fulfilling that need. Those all have purposes where there is
a good reason for the trade off. I'm not sure we do a good job of analyzing the
choices involved in accepting some things.

So, the
first way I could offend someone is if this is taken as victim-blaming; that is
not my intent. MariNaomi handled a difficult situation with dignity, and when
that did not feel like enough she has been brave and open about the experience. I will not criticize her for that.
It is in that open communication that we have a description of one big cost to
the current attitudes, and the current normal.

Often
reading about comic culture, or gamer culture, and probably several other
cultures that I am not going to get into, there are costs that we think about
more than others. We do think about how overall that makes things less
pleasant, and it reinforces a lack of diversity which has creative costs, and
makes it harder for talented people to succeed, but right now the cost I am
thinking about is personal. I am thinking about how women take abuse, and shrug
it off, and are then left with this lack of resolution, and self-loathing.

What I am
saying that is possibly different is that I now understand that self-loathing
as being a result of feeling complicit in one's abuse. We can take an honest
look at that, and reasons why it was logical and that may be helpful. We can
also decide that speaking up is important, and figure out the best ways of
doing that. But first, we also need to take an honest look at the other side of
it.

Friday, December 27, 2013

I almost
bumped Sina Lloyd to a different week, because I was concerned that the
similarities in sound between her and Femke Weidema would result in confusion.
That ended up being okay, largely because of the Cotton Wine element for Femke.

Looking at
Sina Lloyd specifically, there is another element there, with most things being
listed as Sina Lloyd & Buddy Greenfield. The Twitter account that followed
me was, I think, initially just Sina, and so I am not sure how long they have
been collaborating. They seem very united, musically and romantically, so I did
put him in the title, but I have been thinking of her as solo for months.

Like
yesterday, this is essentially synth pop again, but this time the focus feels more
slinky rather than perky. Perhaps with a couple working together, it makes
sense to feel a little more sexual.

Among the
individual songs, there is a certain feeling of sameness, which is probably
fine if you like club music. My favorite was "Bound to Occur",
largely for the visuals of the video. They have put interesting visuals with a
lot of the songs - sometimes with original footage, sometimes not - so Youtube
is probably the best starting point.

The other
thing that may be of interest is that they do a lot of holiday songs, so you
can find songs "Favorite Time", "Happy Halloween", and
"My Valentine".

Thursday, December 26, 2013

I wasn't
sure what to do with this one. Femke Weidema initially followed me on Twitter,
so ended up on the review list. I did not find a lot of songs on her main site,
but as I searched more I found that she also is apparently in a new band,
Cotton Wine, and it did not seem right to neglect that. So, I have been
listening to both.

There are
several links given, but I believe the most valuable is the Soundcloud one,
because there you find her solo material, Cotton Wine tracks, and even
collaborations and background music. If there is anywhere to get an idea of the
full range, it is at Soundcloud.

In the most
general, basic terms, the solo songs tend to be a little more dance/techno,
whereas for Cotton Wine it feels more country, but possibly more folk than
country. Actually, "Bloody Mary" kind of reminds me of All The
Apparatus.

I feel like
the work with Cotton Wine grounds her, where there is more substance and more
interest than in the solo material, so that might be the best starting place.

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

I have
written about the toy drive we do at work before, but this was the first year
that I ended up doing a volunteer shift with it.

I was a
little surprised at how it went. We got to the place and found two mountains of
bags. We were opening the bags from one mountain, which were the donations as
they had come in. We emptied those, and then put them into new bags in groups
of 15, because the toys hadn't been counted yet. And we did some sorting.
Sometimes there were clothes or school supplies, and those went into separate
places, and sometimes we would find things that were broken or not new, and
those did not go in the new bags, but mainly it was open, empty, count while
loading into new bag, tie, and toss it onto the other mountain.

Agencies would
later come and take a specific number of bags, based on (I assume) how many
children they were serving and also how many bags there were. I know there have
been years when we were under goal. I don't know how things came out this year,
but I know it was a lot of toys.

Bikes are
handled a little differently, and some of the larger toys, but ultimately there
is a certain element of randomness to which agencies get which bags and what is
inside. Previously when I had thought about kids getting what they really want,
I thought in terms of whether what they wanted happened to be donated, but
there's a lot more involved.

That's not
to say that there is no value in getting any presents, or that this drive is
their only shot. I know at different malls you will see requests for specific
items on their giving trees, and some of the agencies may work with multiple
collection sources, but there is still this thought that there could be some
special wishes that don't get fulfilled only because the right connections are
not made.

The work of
official charities and agencies is important. I don't want to take anything
away from what they do, because it is valuable and it is hard, and they put in
a lot of effort. (And I imagine I will never stop thinking about the importance
of an equitable society.) However, there are some things that only work out
when it is individual to individual.

There are
food banks to keep people from starving, but that favorite, homemade food
usually requires a person. There are also a lot of times when our basic needs
are met, so we aren't on any charity's radar, but there may be wants that seem
hopeless. When someone who knows makes that happen, that is magic. Actually,
it's better than magic; it's love.

In the
Tuohy's book, In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving, they
do focus on the cheerful part, but also they talk about "popcorn
giving" - responding to things as they pop up.

There are
chances all around when you pay attention. Sometimes you just realize, I can do
that. I could get that shirt for her. I can send cookies. These are rarely life
and death things, but they provide little bursts of joy, because they show that
you have been seen. Someone noticed. Someone cares.

I read Howard's
End because of the phrase "Only connect." I thought it would be
about connecting to each other. It is actually about connecting the animal and
the angel, the poetic and the prosaic. It is about connecting all of the forces
that seem to be in opposition but that actually require cooperation. It still
worked though, because to fully connect to each other, we need to deal with the
contradictions of each other.

We need to
love each other despite the nuisances and the flaws. The general feeling of
goodwill to men is important, but it is even better to love specifically. I see
you. I care about you. I can do this for you.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

This week
is kind of a series, I guess, which I have been doing a lot lately. So, if you
guess that tomorrow's title will incorporate "charity" in some
way, you get a gold star.

If there
are things about the "white Santa" thing that are irritating or sad
or befuddling, that's just part of humanity. It's popular in some circles to
blame religion, but these are things that come up in non-religious contexts
too. Really, the issue is human nature, and one of its ugly sides is the tendency
to create divisions and pick out who does and does not belong.

For all of
the hostility and ignorance and stubbornness, there is more to the story. There
is kindness, beauty, and moments of sweet surprises. Here are some of the
things that have lifted my heart this year.

I really
didn't think there was any way he could still be alive. He was old,
disoriented, and without a cell phone. But they found him. Even with his
confusion issues, he was able to do what he needed to do to stay alive, and
they may have a reason for the confusion now. Sometimes things go much better
than we could ever expect.

I was
initially surprised that the makeovers were outlandish instead of attractive,
because that's the normal thing, but no, it was perfect that they were
outlandish. Feeling attractive is nice, and when you have been sick and losing
your hair and the chemo is causing issues with your weight and skin, it
probably would be appreciated. They did something different here, and they caused
surprise.

Maybe the
subjects were expecting to look conventionally good, and that would have
deadened the impact. What they got was something that was so thoroughly
unexpected that it stopped everything, and for a moment it brought relief.
Priceless.

There are a
couple of different things here. The initial man's gift of the laptop and
textbook and coding lessons is good, and that he saw something in the man, but
there is more. There was also a new friend, and other people looking out for
him. That is good. That the app he is working on is something to help the
environment is good too. What problems would be solved if more people had
access to unlock their potential for solving problems?

Of course,
there is also the story of him being arrested and losing his laptop, because he
is homeless, which, while it does show some good in others, highlights that we
do not have good policies in place for the homeless. However, seeing his story,
and realizing his potential, makes this next story even more intriguing:

How about
that? Giving with no strings attached is cheaper and more effective than the
current system. Perhaps it's a good reminder that it is much harder to replace
something that is lost than to maintain it, so boosting people past that spot
of getting into a home again is huge.

Of course
time lost cannot be replaced, which makes this article particularly
discouraging:

Okay, there
is healing possible, but to know that there are patterns and stresses built in
that add so much hardship to a developing child is a sickening thing,
literally.

But even
here there is hope, because of what they say about "serve and
return"; that ultimately to pay attention, to let children, and people,
know that we see them, and acknowledge them, that is our most basic need and it
is completely possible to provide.

First of
all, thinking about the logistics of that, and that they managed to pull it
off, is amazing in itself.

I shared it
with someone, and I knew her response would be (and it was), "Why doesn't
stuff like that ever happen to us?"

And you
know, this was a one-time thing, I am sure. It was great for everyone who
participated - even the guy who just asked for socks and underwear seemed
really touched at getting them - but that's not the norm, and no, I was not on
that flight.

However, I
live in a world where that happened. Someone got the idea, someone approved it
despite expenses, and people worked to make it happen. And I live in a world
where someone sees something in a homeless man, and taught him to code. I live
in a world where a whole team of people worked to give some cancer patients a
moment of forgetting and turned it into art.

Therefore, I
live in a world where a multitude of good things can and do happen, making it
possible that any number of good things can happen to me.

Monday, December 23, 2013

Yeah, that
title sounds pretty bad, but lots of people have already used "Fear of a
Black Santa", and I think it will work with where I'm going with it.

(Clearly
this is building on Megyn Kelly's response to Aisha Harris's Slate piece.
Relevant links are down below, including a Jon Stewart segment that I had a
really hard time finding after the first time I watched it, because now it is
all about Kelly's "obviously that was humorous" response.)

If anyone
has forgotten from last year, I will not support any of the Christmas
deceptions, no matter how cute, so if your child reads this and realizes that
Santa Claus is not real, there will be no retractions and no apologies.

That being
said, I am not going to criticize Megyn Kelly for her "And by the way
kids" stuff. I remember "Good Morning America" getting a ton of
flack for outing the Elf on the Shelf, and that is also a show that is not
specifically targeted to kids, so fine.

It did
underscore the childishness of everything else she was saying, though, because
the need to believe in Santa came across exactly the same as the need to
believe he was white. She appeals to the historical record of St. Nicholas as a
real person, and you can't just arbitrarily change the race of a real person,
but that real person died in 343. Yes, there is a Saint Nicholas, and he is
part of the origins of what we believe about Santa Claus, but there is so much
else that goes into that, pulling from many different histories.

Thinking
about the color issue, a man born 1743 years ago in Greek-ruled Turkey might indeed have had dark skin,
but not all of Santa Claus comes from Saint Nicholas. I started wondering about
the North Pole thing. Could he be a Laplander? They're pretty Caucasian. At the
same time, I recently saw a picture of a little girl whose family were reindeer
herders, and she was Mongolian, so her skin was somewhat dark.

Apparently
the North Pole thing came from stories of Hyperborea, which could be Celts or
Siberians or maybe even Uyghurs, which is a Turkish Ethnic group living in Central Asia including China. I guess with the Saint Nicholas
connection, we should vote for Uyghurs, so still somewhat dark-skinned.

Actually,
the biggest personal thing for me is that I suddenly understood an argument
that has occasionally come up during some of my prison correspondence, with
someone bothered by white Jesus and apostles. I was always thinking, well,
they're Jewish; that's Caucasian, right? Well, maybe not.

And that's
when it started feeling kind of dirty, to get into this argument about white
enough or dark enough. Let's get out a paper bag and check Santa against that!
What a stupid thing to get hung up on!

(Incidentally,
I like the picture they show on Jon Stewart of how Saint Nicholas might have
looked. I like that guy. He looks kind. It's in the screen capture if you don't
want to watch the whole thing.)

One friend
reminded me that it does change. Jews are probably lighter-skinned now than they
were at the time of Christ. (Congratulations Jon; Jews are now white!) In
addition, attitudes change. The scapegoat immigrants used to be the Irish, and
then it was people from Southeastern Europe, and that eventually goes away.

We still
have problems racially, though, and it has repercussions. The Slate piece (if I
am related to Aisha Harris, I don't know it) was humorous about changing Santa
to a penguin, but that feeling of illegitimacy, of not being included is real.
If we had a more inclusive and egalitarian society, Santa's color might not
matter so much. That's worth thinking about.

Remember,
there are many different traditions that have fed into Christmas, and which
ones we have kept and which ones have dropped may have been chosen
unconsciously, but there was still an element of choice, so we can choose.

I was
fascinated to read about Black Peter. Yes, there is a black counterpart, and
that leads to use of blackface in some countries, and often he is the bad one
(though apparently not always), so that can be problematic, but listen to this:

"if
you've been bad then Black Peter will beat you and maybe take you off to be a
Spanish or Barbary
Coast
pirate's moll..." (http://www.milism.net/blackpeter.htm)

I haven't
been a particularly bad girl, but that's an intriguing option! Maybe we can
find a way to work that in.

In all
seriousness, we do have choices about our lore. The names of Santa's reindeer
were made up by one poet, and we accepted them. The way he looks came from a
couple of cartoonists, but there are many cartoonists.

So perhaps
the most important thing to remember about the historical Saint Nicholas is
that his focus was on helping the poor. He was the patron saint of thieves and
pawnbrokers, students and children, and sailors and prostitutes. He was the
patron saint of merchants as well, and for one method of celebrating Christmas,
that may be the only group that matters, and the children, I guess. Oddly, this
is the exact same transformation that we see happening with the perception of
Jesus. Forget about helping the poor; there are sinners to judge!

And that's
where it becomes about faith. For faith to be of any value, it has to be in
something true. Faith takes away fear. Listening to Fox - and this goes so
beyond Megyn Kelly - there is always that undercurrent of fear. There is fear
of dark-skinned people, fear of teenagers, and fear of tyrants (but only if
they belong to the wrong party, otherwise it's they are just strong leaders).

As silly as
it is, I hear fear in Megyn Kelly's insistence on a white Santa. I don't think
she has examined it, but I would guess it is rooted in the fear that things
might not always be the same, and that her place might not be secure. Inclusion
for others might mean less for her. And you would think that bringing on three
talking heads is a step towards examination, though I think she was
dissatisfied with their level of cooperation.

So here is
my faith. I have faith that children can survive seeing a multi-racial Santa
and be better for it. I have faith that the world is big enough for all of us. I
have faith that giving, and fighting poverty, and turning away materialism, is
better, and will lead to increased happiness. I have faith that there is a
world full of beautiful people out there, and the more people I come to know,
the more I know that I am right.

Anyway,
it's the Fox mindset, as voiced by Romney, that called Obama Santa Claus. What
color is your Santa now?

Friday, December 20, 2013

Yesterday I
mentioned that TEAM was a good opener for Third Eye Blind due to the broad
range of musical influences, and I want to touch on that briefly.

There was a
point during Third Eye Blind's performance where I realized something sounded a
little reggae. There are songs on Blue that remind me a little of Led
Zeppelin. Actually, initially I remembered "Graduate" as a Jane's
Addiction song. (Yes, that is embarrassing.)

I mention
this because I appreciate variety in music, and the inclusion of different
sounds. I appreciate that not every song sounds the same, but also because it
shows an appreciation of a lot of different music on the part of the band, and
a love for music, and that is meaningful for me. So I mention this to say that
I consider Third Eye Blind to be a band that really knows music and has a lot
to offer.

I say I
only wanted to touch on that briefly because there was another type of
inclusion going on that had an even bigger effect on the concert, and I want to
focus more on that. Where it really became clear to me was during an extended
solo by drummer Brad Hargreaves.

He started
playing and the band left, and it was just him. I thought perhaps this was
something they were doing to maintain continuity before the encore. I think Def
Leppard used to do it that way. Then, after the band came back and played some
more, they had a big finish and left again, but they left without playing
"Semi-Charmed Life" and the house lights stayed off. (The ultimate
guide to whether the band is gone or not is always the house lights.) So, that
was not the pre-encore break; it was just a drum solo.

Anyway,
that got me thinking about how there had also been an extended bass solo by
Alex LeCavalier - bass solos never happen - and I realized that every
individual up there had been given a chance to shine and have the focus on
them. We're used to singers taking their moments, and guitar solos, and not
even surprised by an extended keyboard sequence, but this was more. This was unity
with a care for individuals.

In some
ways it was not surprising. This is the band that asks people to introduce
themselves to the people nearby (which is pretty unusual). I was glad to do it.
As I was standing in line waiting for the doors to open, and the people behind
me were talking about how it seemed like less hipsters than usual, and I have
been wondering at some shows how many attendees were fans, or if it was just
something to do. I wasn't sure here, but once Third Eye Blind came on, I knew,
because I saw the joy on the faces of the people around me at that moment, and
heard them singing along, and that was moving, so it was great to talk to them,
and shake hands. I had already been moved by them. We shared the band, and the
band has us personalize it.

In other
ways, the unity of the band was kind of surprising. Third Eye Blind has had a
lot of turnover. Singer Stephan Jenkins has been the only constant throughout
the 20 year run, though Hargreaves comes close with 18 years under his belt.
Guitarist Kryz Reid, keyboardist Alex Kopp, and LeCavalier have all joined
within the last three years, so after the last new album (Ursa Major in
2009), but there was no sense of that listening. They played the music right
and they felt like a band.

This is my
100th band reviewed since I started doing this, and I will probably write a bit
about the writing itself in a week or so, but I like that the milestone
coincided with a concert, and that it was a good one. The other interesting
thing about that is that it is also a band I have seen before, so I had some
basis for comparison.

It has been
a very long time. I saw them at the Schnitz when Tonic opened for them. The
internet indicates this was in 2000, and that sounds right. That is a bigger
venue, and I remember it as a really good show, but my main memory of it is
Jenkins going up into the balcony on "Never Let You Go". And it was
great showmanship; we all had a good time.

This show
was different though. It was emotionally moving. It was fun and it rocked, but
there were other things going on. During their set, TEAM kept using
"beautiful" in reference to Third Eye Blind, and yes, that made total
sense later. If I met the band, hugging them and telling them they were
beautiful would feel like the most honest thing to do, while quite possibly not
being the most appropriate.

There was a
schedule up at the venue indicating that the show would end at 10:45. That did not end up being true,
possibly by as much as a half hour. And they said they didn't have a really
defined show, so different things can happen, but it felt like they didn't want
to leave, and we didn't want them to leave, so that was about right.

It's not
that the Third Eye Blind that I saw in 2000 wasn't great, or that the band with
the strong self-titled release in 1997 in wasn't great, but they feel like
something new now, and something really good. I am excited about the new songs
that they played, and for that next album.

Thursday, December 19, 2013

TEAM is a
four-member band from Dallas, Texas. They opened up for Third Eye Blind
Monday night at the Crystal Ballroom. I had been unable to find out who was
opening in advance, so I had no expectations.

With the
first song, "Come To My House", it was a little reminiscent of
"Space Age Love Song", so I thought the sound was going to influenced
overall by 80's-era New Wave, but that really wasn't the case. There were all
sorts of different influences involved throughout the night. One thing I did
not pick up on at the concert, but did listening to the CD, is that it feels
like there are hints of Hawai'i in "Am I Alive"; that
without actually using slack-key guitar or that style of chanting, you remember
them.

I take that
as a sign of them being really open to music in its entirety, which made them a
good match for Third Eye Blind. For the overall sound, the band lists itself as
indie/rock, which I still tend to think of as alternative. The mood is often
downbeat and moving, with a sympathetic understanding of the human condition.

Perhaps
because of the sincerity that is felt in the music, it seems like they are
playing really straightforward, without a lot of embellishments. However, the
more closely you listen, the more you find that there are many little touches
here are there, with different things being done with vocals or with keyboard,
or whatever is called for, and none of them are overpowering, but they are
effective.

I was able
to speak with the singer briefly after the show, and he said they didn't have a
lot out there on the internet, but they did have a CD. He undersold a little.
First of all, their release date shows as December 3rd, 2013, which is brand
spanking new, but in addition to three songs they have four bonus singles, and
seven tracks on a first CD is two more than average. They also have two pretty
high-quality videos out there (for "Am I Alive" and "Human War
Machine"). That is a pretty strong freshman offering.

Unfortunately
they do not have a video for "Come To My House" yet, you can listen
to it on their web site, along with the four bonus singles, so really
everything but "On My Way" and "Light In The Sky", and
those aren't bad odds.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

The death
of Mandela was a celebrity death, but one where there was a lot of personal
feeling.

There have
been a lot of eulogies going around, and I don't really have anything to add to
them. I was talking to my sister Maria on the way home from church, and we were
talking about what people should know. I mentioned three points. They were the
exact same three points that I then saw in a piece in the commentary section of
the paper, and that was by a writer I have become sort of disillusioned with. It
was pretty deflating; nothing original to say here. Move on.

However,
the reason we were talking was not because Maria did not have her own love for
Mandela, and memories of him, but because her Sunday School class (16 year
olds) knew nothing about him. They knew there was a movie, Invictus, but
they didn't really know anything about it.

It was not
too surprising. One of the sad stories we tell is that when we were showing Invictus
to some friends, we did have to explain a lot, and the worst was when one girl
asked if that (Apartheid) was why South Africa split from North Africa. I initially didn't answer because
I didn't believe it was a serious question, but it was.

Anyway, I
was still kind of okay with that, but a friend posted that her kids didn't
really know about him either. They were younger, so it was less surprising, but
someone else commented that it was better that way, to not put hate in young
hearts, and I knew that was absolutely wrong.

I'm not
saying that it's impossible that anyone could get ideas on how to be oppressive
from history, but I know that it is really possible for people to forget the
very real ways in which people were oppressed, and then to minimize them.

Mandela
died on December 5th, 2013. On December
5th, 1955,
a mass meeting was held in Montgomery, Alabama to see if the bus protests that had
started with Rosa Parks' arrest would continue. That boycott was a significant
and important thing, and it still matters now. What is happening in United States prisons and with drug policy now is
important. What is happening now with GOP-led efforts to disenfranchise large
populations is important, and it is still real.

Studying
this type of history is valuable because it reminds us of the good and bad of
how people can be, and it shows us what works.

For my own
memory of Invictus, they briefly mentioned some of the meetings and
trips to get investment in South Africa, and it took me back to various
efforts here to get countries and corporations to divest from South Africa. I have written before about the
Black Student Union at University of Oregon asking the Student Union to not
sell Coke products on one day a week. I remember thinking it didn't seem like
it could have that much of an impact. Looking back now, I think they felt that
if they asked for more, they would not be able to get it. I also realize that
the focus on corporate activity may have been a direct result of feeling that
there was no way Reagan was going to exert any pressure.

And I
remember Artists United Against Apartheid, and "Sun City". When Paul Simon went to South Africa and worked with South African
artists, I thought he was flouting it, though possibly in a good way, but I
didn't understand what Sun City was, compared to the rest of the country, and why having
popular artists boycott it would be important. There was so much that was
poorly understood here.

Years
later, having read more and seen more, there is still so much more. The story
of how the power imbalances and racial divisions grew in South Africa may not be that different from many
tales of colonialism and slavery, but we forget those stories. It was while
reading Long Walk To Freedom that I began to make the connections
between how Communism and Nationalism relate to each other; there are things there
that relate to current politics, even if no one is calling themselves
Communists or Nazis.

There are
lessons in patience, and planning, and why some people might feel like they
need to consider violence. And for the handful of people who still call Mandela
a terrorist, it might be worth exploring how they spoke about the Contras, for
example. And surely there is a lot we can learn from the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission.

I want
people to know more about Mandela, because he was a very special man. His
ability to see the individual and the mass, going back and forth between small
and big pictures, was invaluable, and his ability to find joy in it was
inspiring.

But there
is more to the story. I said I wanted to see a comic book about not just Mandela,
but the ANC and Biko and Mbeki and de Klerk and Esterhuyse. Some of them are
still alive, but they won't be forever. This is a good time for it.

So, last
night I wrote to Top Shelf Comix, who put out March and The
Montgomery Story, to request it, because I need to be the change I wish to
see in the world.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

"Jane
went back into the kitchen to the inexorable tasks that death has no power,
even for a day, to blot from existence. He can stalk through dwelling after
dwelling, leaving despair and desolation behind him, but the table must be
laid, the dishes washed, the beds made, by somebody."

from Rebecca
of Sunnybrook Farm
by Kate Douglas Wiggin

I first
read that in grade school, I think, and it made a big impression on me then,
and it's still something I think from time to time. Lately, it was because we
had to put Jane down.

We got our
first greyhound by accident, and then my mother started working with the
adoption group around 1995. We have taken in a lot of old ones and ones with
health problems, and we have had other dogs and cats, so I have been down this road
before, but that never really makes it easy.

I read
recently that children don't have a sense of permanence about things, so even
if you deal them that death is permanent, they don't really believe it. My
first thought from that was that parents should not shield young children from
death, because it's better for them to get used to it early, while it doesn't
seem so bad. Pets can be a good part of this. They are valuable for teaching
caring and kindness and responsibility, but also for teaching us about death.

I've lost
people that I love, but never someone who was a part of my daily life, so a lot
of what I understand of grief comes from them. Normally Forest would be at my hip the moment I
reached the door, or Jenny would be sitting there, but no, they're gone. Each
jostle of memory retells the story until at some point it shifts mentally and
we know they are dead.

With Jane
it came really fast, because it happened the day before Thanksgiving, and Jane
was our difficult dog. Normally we had to keep a basket on top of the garbage
to keep her out even when there was nothing special in it, so turkey wrappers
and giblets would need to be carried outside immediately, but not this time.
There were doors that did not need to be closed, and things that did not need
to get put out of reach, and if that had been a relief I would have felt
guilty, but it was only sad.

Still, I
needed to cook dinner, and we needed to clean up, and there were phone calls
that I needed to make. I still have a job. With all the reminders we have of
who is gone, there are even more reminders that we are still alive. We still
get hungry and tired and being happy isn't a betrayal because it's a necessity.

We got Jane
after Suzy died, and while we had thought we would be okay with two dogs, I
noticed that our two older ones were sadder and slower, and so we got a young
one. She annoyed them terribly, because of many of the traits that made her
Jane, but she also cheered them up.

Jane's
death left us with a single dog, and he was one we got for free due to the
previous owners deciding, after four years, that they wanted a small dog. (I
normally advise on not judging, you have a dispensation here.) Geno is very
mellow, and very focused on people. Also, vet bills keep getting more
expensive, and we were thinking, maybe we can be okay with one dog and one cat.
Maybe we need to cut back.

It seemed
like that was what we were going to do, but I noticed subtle things about him,
where I felt like he wasn't doing as well. Mom was a wreck, too, and I started
remembering how much getting Maeve helped after Max died, and how much Jane pepped
up Jack and Randi. It is not a betrayal, it is a necessity. I knew we had to
get another dog.

Now we have
Adele. She is very shy, and she is straight from the kennel, so everything
about having a home is new. We have had shy dogs who have been in homes, and we
have had confident dogs who came straight from the kennel, but this combination
is new.

It has its
difficulties. She is scared to tell us when she needs to go, which makes it
hard while we are still teaching her where to go. Tonight we will work on
sitting in the living room, which as the social hub is the most desirable, but
as the open space is the most terrifying. We'll get there.

That night
after we put Jane down, many people said kind things, and I couldn't respond
until I just got everything out, and I did that, but mainly the overwhelming
thing was how connected I am to life. I am connected by my needs and my
responsibilities, and sometimes the lines blue a little between them, but the
best part is how much of the connection is love.

Monday, December 16, 2013

There have
been three recent deaths that will influence the posts this week, but today
will focus on just one.

I wrote
recently that there will always be someone who will tell you that you are doing
it wrong. I was writing in the context of how to be a member of your
marginalized group, but I have seen a lot lately that applies to internet use,
after reading a piece on how basically posting anything at all makes you
insufferable, one on the wrongness of selfies, and several reactions to the reactions
(meta-reactions?) to the death of Paul Walker.

I have seen
part of She's All That, but nothing else. I didn't think Walker was bad looking, but I wasn't
particularly attracted to him. I did not know about his charity, his daughter,
or his tendency to date 16 year old girls, or anything really, and I would not
know those things if he were still alive. I was pretty indifferent, basically.

I still
felt bad that he died. It didn't seem real, but it was, and you start seeing
messages about it. Because I had been so indifferent before, I thought about
whether it made sense to post something. Just "RIP Paul Walker" is
pretty perfunctory. I have done it for others, though generally they meant more
to me. Still, it meant something.

I was
thinking about it more, because someone had tweeted recently about learning
that Ken Ober was dead. He died in 2009. I knew it happened, and I was not
indifferent on that one.

Ken Ober
was the host of an MTV game show "Remote Control". I watched it in
high school, and I loved it. When I was on Jeopardy, I was talking with some of
the other contestants in the green room about other shows we would have wanted
to do, and one of guys had attended a taping, so three of us were talking about
the show, and how he had died, and it was important.

They never
really announced a cause of death. Based on the symptoms and the time of year
when he died (November), it sounds like flu, but he wasn't super famous, there
was not a lot of press, and I think it kind of led to a lack of closure. Maybe
you shouldn't need closure for a person you watched on a show over twenty years
ago, but I know when I saw the one tweet, I had to reply. What I replied added
nothing, and I felt kind of silly, but I had to, and if anyone else mentions
Ken Ober in the future, I will have to say something, because that's how it is.

I think
there is this process we go through in terms of coping with death, where we
have to build this acceptance and comprehension that they are dead and we are
not. With the people we know, there are memorial services, and commiserating
with others, and we tell the story enough times that we believe it is true. We
go over details, and are frustrated when we don't have details, and then
sometimes we get details and are still frustrated because it still doesn't seem
right.

We don't
know celebrities, but we know of them, and so we know they are dead. Not being
in their circle, we don't get to take part in the same way, but maybe we do
need something.

I did not
do a Facebook status update or tweet for Paul Walker, but I saw many people
that wished him a peaceful rest, which I respect. This was shortly followed by
complaints about the trite nature of them, though more with Lou Reed, because
many people who did appreciate Lou Reed knew that others did not truly
appreciate him enough. We'll now repeat the process with Peter O'Toole.

Having been
through that thought process, I got what they were saying. Paul Walker was
nothing to me, except a human being, whom I knew about, who died. That was enough
to make me feel something, and for people who had seen his movies, or had
thought about him more, well, I can't really criticize anyone for caring that
someone is dead.

Later
criticisms involved the lack of caring for others, like the other passenger,
Roger Rodas. It does not feel the same, because we did not know him, but we
could have. I saw a picture of friends trying to come to the rescue. I don't
know their names, but there were emotions coming through in the picture, and I felt
something there.

There is a
powerful concept here, that has been tested. If you make a charity appeal
focusing on a general problem, with a large number, or if you focus on one
person, people respond more to the one person. If you try and combine the
approaches, it can still be less effective than just focusing on the one.
Therefore, the most important piece of recent journalism this week may be http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/invisible-child/#/?chapt=1,
because there are many children and families who need help, which is daunting,
but people can focus on Dasani, and they are responding to her.

A news
story Saturday night added another thought. They were playing the final
recordings of the Hotshots crew who died this summer. I did not know any of
them, but I read John Maclean's Fire on the Mountain last year, about a
different fatal fire. Because of the similarities, I felt things there. I
understood what certain things meant, and what it would lead to.

Usually
when we talk about death, we focus on how you need to appreciate life now, and
the people you have now, and that is valid. What I am thinking about now,
though, is needing to be open to more.

One theory
about the charity campaign thing is that having a large number feels
overwhelming. We feel free to care about one, but maybe we are scared to care
about 22000 homeless children in New York, or 3.9 million people displaced by
a typhoon, or 7 billion people on Earth.

As
understandable as that is, we are capable of caring a lot more than we think, if
we do it incrementally. In conversations and in books and in surprising ways,
we expand. So talk more, ask more questions. Read more books. Make more eye contact. Smile at
strangers, maybe even greet them if you're feeling really wild.

And don't
suppress your impulse to care about something, even if you are not sure how to
express it meaningfully. Caring is one of the best things about us, so it the
last thing we should leave latent.